Using moments from your story for character development

I’ve been thinking about this since I wrote the piece on writing with AI – I still believe that AI is not everything it is touted to be, at least not yet. It has potential to grow but it will never have human experience and I think that is a necessary component of being a writer. Also, it is fine now as everyone wants to hook people so the AIs are being freely shared. I don’t think that will continue to be the modus operandi as it were. Eventually companies are going to have to monetize their product because no one gives things away for free. Why develop a product to not make money off of it? Companies are going to lure people into the ease and promise of using AIs and then charge, either subscription or by project or token. And that is where I think it might be a problem, unless you are a corporations, who wants another subscription service?

I digress. My purpose in writing this was to talk about using moments from your life for character development. One of the four stories I am supposed to be writing (which does not magically happen somehow when I procrastinate by doing everything else under the sun) is based on a woman who is completely insecure. Now, this is not hard for me to write as I have no self-confidence – zero, zip, zilch, nunca, niente, nein, nada, rien – I took some liberties with language there, but you get the point. I have been overweight since childhood, a fact that was not lost on even members of my own, loving, well-meaning family and pointed out often, which did nothing to bolster my self-image. And your self-image is somehow tied in your mind to your self-worth. So though I have lived my life going out of my way to protect and care for the people I love and give them all I have, sometimes it doesn’t feel like its enough – a lot of times it doesn’t feel like that’s enough. Because how could someone that the world sees as less than perfect ever be enough?

I was married in 1996 – many moons ago now. I’ve talked about him before, but I married my high school sweetheart, who has over the years taken great care to try and remove these negative self-images from my head. Sometimes it works. My best friends also do their best to bolster my self-confidence and sometimes that works too. Anyway, as I am still besotted by him, you can imagine that I was over the moon with happiness when we were planning our wedding. I went shopping for my gown. There was a little bridal store by me and all I wanted was an off the shoulder gown with sleeves by designer Alfred Angelo. I loved it – I had cut out picture after picture of these gowns. My parents and I went to this little store. I showed them what I wanted. The woman who owned the store, took one look at me and said, “Oh that will never do, let me show you what we have that might fit you.” In that moment I was crushed. Whatever dreams I had of the perfect wedding gown were gone. I settled – the first dress she gave me that I tried on and fit was what I selected. I should have walked out of the store. I should have been enraged to be treated like that, but the little girl whose self-worth was tied to her negative self-image didn’t speak up, She accepted that she was less than – less than perfect, less than worthy – not enough. It took me twenty years to admit to my best friends and my husband that I did not like my wedding dress It was pretty, but not what I wanted. My best friend was not surprised – she told me that she never understood my choice – it wasn’t me. She had been part of the planning and the dreaming and had been cutting out pictures right alongside me. My husband was so sad, as if it threw a pallor on the whole day. It didn’t. On the day I didn’t care – all I saw at the end of the aisle was him and I had literal hearts in my eyes. Our wedding was beautiful, our reception still talked about among family and friends twenty-seven years later – we had a blast. The wedding dress sits in a box in my garage, a dress that witnessed a day filled with love – but a dress I never loved.

That experience, along with a multitude of other events like that over the years has made it easy to formulate this new character in my mind. Because Ember feels less than much of the time. There are people around her who should be the ones to make her feel whole, that simply don’t. I belong to a group of moms on the Book of Faces, and recently a mom posted that her daughter had gained weight. The mom was embarrassed by this and asked should she say anything. Hell No. Guess what? People who are overweight are well aware of it. They understand it is not society’s norm. They know they face an uphill battle from simple things like finding cute clothing to emotionally scarring trauma of plane rides and amusement parks. They understand that their health is at risk and they are battling these demons every day. Pointing it out, especially if you are family, only makes them feel less than and why would you do that to anyone?

I make it a point to tell people that they are enough and I truly want them to believe it. I give away compliments freely and I am sure some people are uncomfortable with receiving them. But people are beautiful, resilient creatures with the ability to love and empathize. I will always find something positive to say about you and I mean it. You never know when someone is having a crisis of self-worth and that compliment will give them just a little bit in their happiness bank to make it through the day.

During mental health month remember to add to someone’s happiness bank. Remember that you are enough. Your self-worth and self-confidence should not be tied to your appearance because you are so much more than that. You are a masterpiece of generations of genetics. You are beautiful. You are valuable.

Now take all those emotional experiences and throw them into your characters and make them the most fucking relatable characters ever. Seeing insecurities and imperfections reflected in the characters we create makes readers feel a little more accepted and normal – and that is something we all need.